The Five Most Metal Moments in ‘Detroit Metal City’

This week, “Detroit Metal City” volume 4 hits shelves courtesy of Viz, and whlie I could not be more excited to get my hands on it, it occurs to me that there are probably some people out there who might not be familiar with the series, and who are therefore leading lives that are empty and completely devoid of meaning.

If you haven’t read it, “DMC” follows the adventures of Japan’s most evil hardcore death metal band as they rise to fame on the strength of songs about how they rape, murder, and rape-then-murder pretty much everyone. The twist? Lead singer/songwriter/guitarist/Emperor of Hell Lord Johannes Krauser II is actually 23 year-old Soichi Negishi, whose gift for Death Metal is directly at odds with his love of Swedish pop music and hipster fashion. The last thing Negishi wants is to be a demon-spawned frontman for a band whose hits include “Slash Killer” and “Death Penis,” but thanks to a part of his personality that hulks out into Krauser-mode whenever he gets stressed or competitive, he’s found himself living the hardcore lifestyle more often than he would’ve wanted.

That’s why today, we’re prepping for Volume 4 with a look at Detroit Metal City’s Top Five Most Metal Moments!

#5: POLI-CIDE

When a DMC cover band gives Negishi a hard time for performing an acoustic song about cheese tarts in a park, he transforms into Krauser to show them how true metal is done. Eventually, the cops show up to put a stop to the concert, and while Negishi goes along quietly, he trips while taking off his guitar and ends up bashing one of the cops in the head.

Or, as the DMC fans see it: Lord Krauser unleashes the fury of his axe on the cops that dared interrupt his unholy rituals!

#4: 10 RAPES IN ONE SECOND

Krauser’s trademark move is a song where he sings the word “rape” ten times in one second. In fact, the only thing death metal enough to top it is when, in order to inspire a sick fan to power through an operation, he says it eleven times in one second, splitting open his own tongue with the power of evil. Not even DC’s Dr. Light could top that.

#3: PUBLIC EXECUTION

Usually, Negishi’s hardcore hijinx are the result of of hulking out into Krauser, but as seen with the Poli-Cide incident, it’s occasionally his sheer clumsiness that increases DMC’s rep. It happened again when DMC faced off with American Death Metal Emperor Jack Ill Dark in a battle of the bands, when Negishi tripped before being lowered onto the stage from the rafters and ended up hanging himself, only to “rise from the dead” to challenge Dark and his Buffalo of Metal.

And yes: It was a real buffalo.

#2: KRAUSER DIOXIDE

When a group of girls barge into his hotel room demanding to be Krauser’s sexual sacrifice, Negishi avoids romantic entanglements by instead choosing to “rape”the air itself, which has the interesting side effect of creating a new chemical compound, and causing DMC fans to offer highly dubious speculations on the makeup of clouds.

And finally…

#1: THE TOKYO TOWER

With its distinctive Eiffel Tower-esque shape and its prominence as a Japanese landmark, the Tokyo Tower is a fixture in anime and manga. In fact, it’s destroyed so frequently in fiction that even its real-life official mascot is often seen wearing a bandage, but it has never seen quite the indignities it gets in “Detroit Metal City” v.3. When a bunch of DMC fans take Krauser’s nonsense parting remarks as a prophecy involving the Tower, Negishi shows up to calm everyone down and ends up getting swept up in the Metal of the Moment, climbing the tower, and having sex with it.

One more time for those of you in the back: Krauser has sex with the Tokyo Tower.

I’ve remarked pretty often that there are plenty of reasons that super-hero comics creators should quit using rape as a plot device, and after reading “Detroit Metal City,” there’s one more on the pile: There is just no way you’re going to top Kiminori Wakasugi.

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